Chapter 1 ~ Madison
"Does anyone even care about this entire initiation thing for newbies?"
Madison rolled her eyes. Alana everyone. She scoffed, but said nothing. Madison was not about to comment, instead tied her blonde hair into a braid and ignored the rest of the conversation. She noticed her best friend Asaiah clenching his fists, and she sighed, getting up from her seat to settle the dispute going on. When neither Asaiah or Abigail paid any sort of attention to Madison whatsoever, she let them rant for a minute before she yelled, "hey!" This time, both heads snapped her way. She half expected them to start arguing with her, but they didn't.
"What's going on?" Maddie demanded, glaring at the both of them. "Stop this, whatever it is. You'll disturb Them. You know how they get," she hissed, not wanting to attract strange looks from adults. As a teenager, Madison felt that she needed to prove herself to them but she was beginning to feel less and less motivated by the day. She was growing bored. She needed to go out but they always needed consent from one of them first. It wasn't like they were her parents. Her parents were gone, vanished from the area. From life itself actually.
"Sorry," Abigail rubbed her forehead with her forefinger. "A lot has been going on, I just don't know what to do."
Madison gave her a curt nod, understanding how she felt. It wasn't unusual for either her frenemy or her best friend to act like this, and they were on each other's back half the time. And no, it was never because of her. She had no idea what it was all about. Madison grabbed Asaiah's arm and pulled him away harshly, only stopping when they were out of earshot.
"The hell was that?" She asked as calmly as she could. She had to admit that she was getting so tired of his attitude.
"You know what," he snapped and when he took a step towards her, she didn't flinch or back away. Madison glowered, and slapped him when he tried to push her. Sure, they were best friends and all, and they loved each other as friends, but this was how they settled their disputes often. Especially if there was something gone extremely wrong. Their friendship was an odd one to say the least.
"No, in fact I really don't," she said in her normal tone of voice, she wasn't shouting and she wasn't quiet. She touched his cheek briefly where she'd hit him. "Sorry A," she said awkwardly, having never been great with apologies.
"Look. Abbie and I...I don't even know what's up with her. Today was really bad though, like worse than usual." Uh oh.
"What do you mean?" Madison asked hesitantly, not wanting to ruin his mood of wanting to talk to her about it.
"She said stuff...that was uncalled for. Like..." He sighed, frustrated. "Abigail doesn't know why we're here. She said she can't remember," he explained further and when Madison didn't reply, he sat down on a rock. Then he looked at his best friend with a look that said nothing was right. It was probably never right from the start.
"That's not the worst part. The Division has removed her memories."
Madison was speechless. "What?"
She had questions, and suspicions (lots and lots of 'em) but she'd never prepared herself for this. So Madison had been correct. Her aunt told her everything, before they executed her.
There was one rule, two choices, of the Division:
Join
Or Die.
Asaiah was saying stuff that seemed way too obvious, if the Division was removing people's memories of the place and the history and why they were there, why was it so easy for the rest of the people to find out? It seemed too easy.
"The Division have done stuff, Mads...stuff that is not legal."
"Is that even a surprise?"
He ignored her sarcasm. Rude. "They're taking people one by one, and interrogating them. If they're suspicious of even the stupidest thing, they'll remove those memories of what they know about the Division. Don't you think that's inhumane?"
